I've created a special feature for the print media and broadcasters ("Page Nine" regardless of where or when it runs), that covers stories afresh, not the way news rooms typically flavor things. It would help reduce the distrust so many news consumers feel and could be the most avidly followed item you carry -- if you carry it. It certainly is well received by my audience.

Here's a casual sample. It might make you say, "We'll NEVER run that!" but Page Nine is being built around ad revenues from clear-thinking mainstream businesses.

I have found and posted 35 brand new books and DVDs
for gun owners -- self defense, non-lethal force, gun rights; and
The Founders Package -- books the Founding Fathers read and wrote!http://www.gunlaws.com/books8newbies.htm

For the record, the paper did go through our standard, double-blind peer-review process. Everything in our journal does, except for letters, book reviews, the editorial, and the president's page. The article is correctly described as a review article -- as opposed to original research. The format follows the conventions in the Uniform Requirements for Submissions to Biomedical Journals. --Dr. Jane Orient

Quote worth noting:

"I say to you that we are in a battle, and that more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media." -- Osama bin Laden's chief lieutenant Muhammad al-Zawahiri, in an intercepted and authenticated communiqué to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (before he was eliminated by U.S. forces), reported by Accuracy in Media.

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1- Waterboarding Isn't Torture

The lamestream media told you:

The U.S. House of Representatives voted to declare the interrogation technique known as "waterboarding" as torture, in a move designed to outlaw its use by the CIA and other federal operatives fighting terrorism. The new U.S. Attorney General evaded the question repeatedly during his confirmation hearings, but was confirmed nonetheless.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:

Waterboarding, which the Uninvited Ombudsman observed in a televised re-creation exercise, is not torture in any normal sense of that word. It is however a stern, persuasive interrogation technique, reportedly effective against Islamic extremists intent on murdering civilians.

In torture, subjects come out physically harmed with burns, abrasions, cuts, smashed or missing parts and sub-dermal hematomas, known as black-and-blue marks. In waterboarding, the subject comes out wet above the waste. Any interrogation, even a voluntary job interview, can leave a person with invisible psychological scars for life.

Torture involves physical beatings, truncheons, amputations, stabbing, fire, heat or open flame, electrical shock, acid, poison, drugs, tools like pliers, hammers, surgical instruments, motorized gear like drills and pulley systems, and beheading comrades for its persuasive value. People have volunteered to see what waterboarding is like. No one volunteers for torture, which is like what James Bond goes through sometimes.

In waterboarding, the gagged subject has clean water poured on the face and upper body, giving an uncomfortable but completely safe sense of drowning (under torture subjects often die). By openly advertising the technique, the House may have reduced its effectiveness by emphasizing that, unlike real torture, it causes no harm.

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2- McCain Wasn't "Mistreated"

The lamestream media told you:

In a story unrelated to the House vote on waterboarding, Jim Davenport writing for the AP reports that presidential candidate John McCain "suffered mistreatment" as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:

John McCain was sadistically tortured during his 5-1/2 years as a Vietnamese prisoner. His own published account reveals brutal day-long beatings, being kicked, scratched and bounced around in a concrete room, drugging, broken limbs and ribs, rifle butting, bayoneting in his foot, two years of solitary confinement and more.

The AP stands by its "mistreatment" characterization, and that waterboarding is torture and un-American. No one has been charged in the news media's mistreatment of the language or deception of the public. Yet.

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3- Semiautomatics Confuse Brady

The lamestream media told you:

Referring to the Colorado Springs, Colo., ban on semiautomatic handguns for private security guards, Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Handgun Violence (formerly the National Council to Ban Handguns), said, "We allow ordinary citizens to carry these things around. Why we do that, I don't know." Helmke was interviewed by DeeDee Correll of the L.A. Times, following the death of a mass murderer shot by civilian volunteer Jeanne Assam, during a felony assault in a church.

Official security guards in the city, under "an attached policy" not part of the ordinance, are limited to revolvers in .38 and .357 calibers. Assam, a private CCW-permit holder, used an unspecified 9mm sidearm in the successful defense of the hundreds of congregants at the church.

Despite being named a security guard by lamestream outlets, she was not charged with carrying the wrong kind of gun, probably because, well, she's not a security guard. No correction has been issued.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:

In a startling admission to one of the nation's largest lamestream papers, Paul Helmke, the man in charge of highly funded coordinated efforts to end the civil right to arms and disarm innocent Americans, admitted he didn't know what normal semiautomatic sidearms are for.

To clarify, the reason American citizens "carry these things around," is for personal safety, to protect the sanctity of life, to deter criminals, to defend against criminals, to assist others attacked by criminals as Jeanne Assam heroically did, plus for all the reasons we give firearms to the police and other authorities, and because as a natural, historic and constitutionally guaranteed right of free people, there are no legitimate grounds to forbid such private property to the public.

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4- Unlimited Government Power

The lamestream media told you:

The Senate backed a new plan to require automobile manufacturers to produce cars that get an average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, an increase of 10 MPG over current averages, according to the AP in an unbylined story.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:

Experts poring over the U.S. Constitution today were unable to find any delegated authority that allows Congress to regulate an entire industry's product line, despite the Senate's decision recently to do so.

"If they can do this to the gigantic and powerful car makers, just imagine what it means for the little guy," said one scholar, who refused to be named for fear of reprisals. "Congress didn't use a specific excuse this time, but if they can do this to save the planet, change the atmosphere, centrally manage production or control private enterprise, is there anything they can't do?"

According to another highly placed source, also speaking on condition of anonymity, "The Constitution no longer constrains Congress," implying that the golden era of "government of limited powers," is dead. Experts differed on whether this matters.

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5- 822 Energy Pages

The lamestream media told you:

The new energy bill passed by Congress and signed by President Bush will eliminate inefficient incandescent light bulbs, create corn-made bio-fuel mixtures for 35 MPG cars, show greenhouse-gas emissions labels on vehicles, make expensive-to-buy but cheap-to-operate energy-efficient appliances, and add geothermal and other alternative energy sources in the next decade or two. The world will be a more efficient, greener and better place with the wonderful new government guidance.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:

With a single headline and less than half a page of news, the national media "reported" on the new congressional energy bill. The bill contains 822 pages of new federal law, and was totally supported by the high spending and so-called low spending parties.

The effect of everything but the few items summarized above was omitted. Tax-funded spending increases are sprinkled liberally throughout the entire package but only purchasable product and service changes were mentioned. Lawyers and federal compliance professionals were ecstatic over the new job-security measures, added costs and cash handouts the bill mandates.

Since the 822 pages of nearly indecipherable legalese are available on line, there was no need to report on them, according to standard media policy. The 3-digit number of the bill, HR 6, which would make finding it easy, is a mere technicality and was not included. The 600 lines in the bill's table of contents includes more than 200 new grants, loans, programs, agencies, fees, departments, studies, preferences and other expansions of government in the name of efficiency, also not reported. The cost for the thousands of new federal requirements is unknown.

Democrats' unsubstantiated bragging about eliminating "the famously inefficient incandescent light bulb," was unquestioningly carried by every "news" outlet. This somehow overlooked the stunning work done by a dead white guy to invent the bulb, which until now was considered a miracle.

The electric lightbulb brought the entire human race out of abject darkness and the dangerous truly inefficient "filthy burnt-stuff lighting" humans had suffered with since the dawn of civilization. Prior to the easily swallowed Democrat revision of history, the Edison light bulb had received unmitigated praise in classrooms and societies globally.

Enforcement of the thousands of new requirements, if necessary, will be handled in the usual manner -- by heavily armed federal agents.

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6- Tigers Need Cash

The lamestream media told you:

Reporting from New Delhi, Ashok Sharma of the AP says a conservation group says that saving the world's tigers will cost $500 million per year, but that funding is only $5 million annually. The 12 countries where tigers live are Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:

How tigers survived before international demands for gigantic annual funding was not revealed in the AP report. The countries listed are among the most mismanaged, impoverished, underdeveloped or totalitarian on the face of the Earth. No linkage between these conditions and the presence of tigers is known. No guarantee that funding would reach the tigers was made. Tigers have no union representatives. Natives, from the tigers' perspective, are food.

The report does indicate that poaching, "has savaged their populations," but fails to connect $500 million in sought-after annual funding with the arrests and detention of poachers. If distributed equally, $500 million annually could buy every poacher in the area a small yacht, two cars, a mansion and a lifetime supply of food.

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7- Bad Vaccine Safe

The lamestream media told you:

"More than a million doses of a common vaccine given to babies as young as 2 months were being recalled because of contamination risks, but the top U.S. health officials said it was not a health threat," according to a story circulated by the Associated Press.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:

Why a million doses of vaccine would be recalled if it was not a health threat was unexplained, and reporters failed to ask the top U.S. health official.

The AP did report that because of the "inconvenience," the Merck production line will be shut down for nine months. "It's likely that there's going to be a shortage of this product," a Merck spokeslady said. Shortages typically trigger price increases.

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8- Thieves Steal Roofing

The lamestream media told you:

Increasing prices for lead have led thieves to begin stealing roofs from medieval churches in England, reports Mary Jordan in the Washington Post. "Lead has jumped from $450 a ton five years ago to $3,200 this year, according to police and insurance-industry officials," she says.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:

Even a completely green novice knows you get metal prices from people in the metal markets, or record books or databases, not from police and insurance agents. Using inadequate sources, a routine practice at the Washington Post and similar lamestream outlets, even if you get two of them as Ms. Jordan did, leads to he-said-she-said stories, instead of reported facts. Whether the police and insurance agents got their facts straight was not covered by the reporteress.

A quick online check of lead prices, which can vary dramatically even on a daily basis, shows an approximate price of $2,200/ton now and $400/ton five years ago, so the Post report was only off by a lot.

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9- Special Guest Columnist Craig Cantoni:
Will a president fix our problems?

Pundits, political elites and common folk are now claiming the problems facing the country are obvious and easy to fix, if only we had the sense to elect someone who wants to fix them. Broadcasting star Glenn Beck said that very thing yesterday on his show.

A growing feeling of economic insecurity, widespread disgust with Congress, and disillusionment with George Bush have led many Americans to embrace the platitudes of Barack Obama, the sophistry of Hillary, the religiosity of Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, the populism of John Edwards, the bully-bully of John "Teddy Roosevelt" McCain, the vacuity of Fred Thompson, the...

I have to stop before I get sick to my stomach.

Yes, indeed. If only we would elect an alpha male or beta female who cares about each and every one of us, partisan bickering would end, pork barrel spending would end, global competition would end, foreign interventionism would end, global warming would end, increases in the price of gas and healthcare would end, the invasion of brown people would end, radical Islam would end, and in-grown toenails would end.

But what about farm subsidies? Are they going to end? Well, no, not if someone wants to be elected president.

Then if a president is powerless to stop something as uncomplicated as farm subsidies, why would someone think that a candidate would be able to stop, well, anything putting Americans in a funk and feeling the nation is in decline?

Beats me. But I do know that the nation has been transformed into a kleptocracy under majority rule, or mob rule, if you will. Over half of Americans are now either mooching off the minority through the tax code, or working for the government, or working in private-sector jobs that owe their existence and good pay to government regulations.

They might complain about the other guy's rice bowl, but they will do anything to protect their own rice bowl. The result, of course, is the status quo, and the farm bill. The status quo is a kleptocracy and ever-growing government.

These people all depend on force for their jobs, subsidies, entitlements and handouts.

For example, if it weren't for farmers banding together to compel the government to give them taxpayers' money, non-farmers would never hand their money to them.

Unfortunately, government force doesn't work well in the other direction. As political science and economic principles explain, it is nearly impossible for citizens to band together, legally speaking, and get government to stop farmers (or any other organized special-interest group) from using force against them. If they can't stop 2.1 million farmers, they certainly can't stop 3 million unionized teachers, 35 million AARP members, or 48 million Social Security recipients.

Well, that's not completely true. They can stop them, but it would require something that I don't advocate: the use of extra-legal force. It would take only about 100,000 men and women marching on the Capitol with torches, pitchforks, feathers and hot tar to convince members of Congress that it is in their best interest to stop taking people's silverware and giving it farmers, teacher unions, wealthy geezers, and other special interests. If it came to a choice between losing an election and being tarred and feathered, they'd pick losing.

Enough fantasy. Back to reality.

The reality is that the nation isn't going to be brought together by Barack, Hillary, Mitt, Rudy, Mike, John, Fred, or anyone else. When government degenerates into a political spoils system as ours has, it is impossible for citizens to trust each other or their government.

It is astonishing and troubling that someone as smart as Glenn Beck doesn't understand this.

An author and columnist, Mr. Cantoni can be reached at ccan2@aol.com.

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Do you know what to do if you're stopped by police, or do you have pipe dreams that can get you into hot water? Learn how to handle a stop, and rights you do and do not have. What do you say and do if a cop wants to search your car? Must you show ID if you're not under arrest? "You and the Police"http://www.gunlaws.com/persafe.htm

Do something good for yourself -- get a book or two your school teachers would NEVER recommend:http://www.gunlaws.com

I have found and posted 35 brand new books and DVDs
for gun owners -- self defense, non-lethal force, gun rights; and
The Founders Package -- books the Founding Fathers read and wrote!http://www.gunlaws.com/books8newbies.htm

I retired last year after 36 years with the Tucson Police, mostly in patrol. I preferred to work the night shifts, where most of the violent crime takes place. Your comments about police response are right on target. The police, in my experience, almost NEVER arrive in time to prevent violent crime.

One case stands out. Several years ago, a woman called 911 to report that her ex-boyfriend was breaking into the house and had a gun. She had obtained a restraining order against him and he had been ordered to surrender all firearms and ammunition. That worked well.

This was a new subdivision, where streets often ended in dead ends for "traffic safety" reasons. Tucson Police are not provided with maps; each officer is responsible for his or her own. Most use a street atlas updated once a year.

The officer took a wrong turn, which delayed response by about 3 minutes, we figured. Of course, boyfriend got in and shot the woman. Later we all listened to the 911 tape, which had all the details, including her pleading for her life and the gun shots.

Since we had no vehicle description, the boyfriend escaped. If she had been armed, I'm sure she would be alive today. We found out later that she had recently graduated from nursing school and had started a new job at one of our hospitals. I'm pretty sure her educational background convinced her that guns are bad. --Al J., TPD retired

Very good, Alan, with the exception of all the references to the goddamned CCW permit thing. Why not just call the person a "civilian gun owner" or a "lawfully armed American?"
Eric H. [Alan: Good point Eric, the incessant promotion of permits over rights had gotten to me.]

Alan: There are NO reports of police breaking speed limits getting to the Omaha shopping mall to respond to calls of "shots fired." A six-minute response time is several life times, as born out by all the people the man shot before killing himself. Security officers in the Mall were also disarmed because the mall fears potential liability claims if any of them actually fires a weapon. The Mall did display signs on its doors barring possession of firearms on its premises -- it therefore is a phony "Gun Free Zone", or, as we know better, a "FREE FIRE ZONE FOR ANY NUT WITH A GUN! The mainstream media made no note of these facts.

[Alan: But they will take notice, when states this year introduce the Gun-Free-Zone Liability Act which says, "If you make a gun-free zone, you're liable for any harm it causes." So-called gun-free zones are fraudulent, reckless, negligent, known to be dangerous, ask your local reps to introduce the bill:http://www.gunlaws.com/GFZ/GFZ-BillReview.htm

You are correct about the media jumping over itself backwards to call the woman in the Colorado church anything but what she was. She was simply a CCP holder who had volunteered at her own church. She is NOT a police officer or an employee of a security guard company. But that is what CNN, MSNBC, Headline News, and CBS all tried to describe her as in their broadcasts. What was most amusing was to hear the blatant anguish in the voice of Katie Couric asking the woman how she could possibly run towards the shooter, instead of away from him, like all the rest of the sheeple. She was also bothered in interviewing a man, who was wounded as he worked towards the killer, and tried to "borrow" the gun from a security guard who was too afraid to act. He was a Vietnam Vet who decided, long ago, that if anything like Columbine were to happen when he was around, he would do everything he could to stop the killers. She could not believe that an unarmed man would attack an armed man. These same people have been angrily protesting our involvement in Iraq for almost 6 years, and they still have no idea how men in arms are trained to fight???? --Paul V.

Hi Alan, I'm enjoying Page Nine very much. Thank you for standing up for all of us.

Great blog. David G.

Thanks for all the great information. I see you have a lot of new stuff to sell. DVDs and more great books. I will be ordering some of these after the holidays and pass them along to my son. Keep up the great work. I always look forward to your articles. I also plan to do a donation to the A2A President. I would have not known had I not heard it from you. God Bless, Be Safe, my friend Alan Korwin. -- Larry H.

Dear Alan, Don't forget, with the deer herds at all time record numbers here on Long Island in New York State, I volunteer my services as a nuisance hunter to keep the deer off of the runways at a local airport. Imagine the tragedy of a high speed fragile passenger aircraft colliding with a deer during takeoff or landing? A motor vehicle will be totaled on the highway, but an aircraft's passengers will be devastated on the runways... Thank you. --Cliff